Season's Greetings and Best Wishes for a Prosperous New Year

©2017 Laurel J. Delaney.  All rights reserved.

Make Your Team Thrive in 2018

Yes, it's doable:  you can start a business and have a baby at the same time.

When Caitlin Zaino, Founder of Porter & Sail, a hospitality company, was expecting her first child, she was desperate find an example of another female founder who’d juggled childbirth and running a startup.  She found the role model she was looking for in Birchbox co-founder Katia Beauchamp, who shared this advice.

“Everyone wants to think that they are the most important person in an organization but the team still thrives, if you’ve done your job well, all should move forward.”

So when the time came, Caitlin took time off, wanting to show that it was more than OK for anyone — even the founder — to take time away for a new baby.

Read more about how you can strike out on your own, start a new company, grow the economy, and have a baby.

WEGG Enables Global Growth for Women Business Owners

Laurel Delaney writes for the WPO blog:

Women-owned firms that export,” reports the White House Council on Women and Girls, “not only earn more but employ more people and are, on average, more productive than women-owned firms that do not.”  But estimates show that only 12 percent of women-owned SMEs in the U.S. export.  Either women do not think they have what it takes to export or they lack the appropriate support, such as training, education, and advisory networks.

Solutions are available.  Visit Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global

WEGG is a proud partner to the Women Presidents' Organization

Fire Clients Who Hold You Back

I am a big fan of Marshall Goldsmith and this article is one of my favorites because it rings true on so many levels for me.  The biggest nugget in the article below is how toxic relationships -- whether a client, customer, employee, boss or group -- can hold you back.

Which relationships should you continue to develop, and which should you gently let go? In business, Goldsmith recommends that customers be referred elsewhere (fired) when they do these six different things.

The bottom line is that it isn't terribly hard to cut ties with people or groups who bring you down.  And when you do, you lead a more stress-free and healthy life.  And that can only be a good outcome.